Worlds Collide

by Tracy St. John

  It was similar enough to the portal computer podium that Velia was sure it had to be such a device. Curious as to how that piece of Risnarish technology worked, she edged near to peek around his shoulder.

  Jape rounded on her in an instant. “What are you gawking at? Are you trying to spy on us now?”

  Maybe he was as dangerous as he looked, because Arga stepped forward, tugged Velia back, and put himself between her and Jape. His voice pitched low with anger, he said, “There is no reason to be aggressive. You brought her here. You acknowledged she did not ask to come.”

  Jape was bigger than Arga, and he drew himself up as if to impress that upon the other officer. “She is one of them. The ones who help the Monsuda.”

  Velia fairly screeched in her frustration with his obstinacy. “I’m an engineer! I’ve never met an alien before in my life! How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  For his part, Arga acted unimpressed with Jape’s imposing size. He stared at the larger man with no sign of fear. “Ehar and the council are waiting.”

  Jape seethed, glancing between the two. After a couple of moments, he visibly pulled himself together, his countenance smoothing, shoulders relaxing. His tone when he spoke to Arga was cold, but polite. “She goes nowhere. Keep her here, in the containment cell if you must. But she’s not to leave this dome without me.”

  Arga dipped his head. “As you say. I hardly think she needs to be in a cell, however. Earthlings are the most physically defenseless creatures I’ve ever encountered.”

  “You’d be foolish to believe that, Arga. Appearances are deceiving where this species is concerned.”

  Jape glanced at Velia again. The pained despair in his face shook her, fit to break her heart. Somehow it was worse than his accusations and anger.

  Without another word, he walked out. Velia watched him go and wondered at the urge to follow after him, to make him share the reason for such anguish.

  Did Jape act out of real hatred for Earthlings, or simply out of unfathomable misery?

  Stop worrying about him. He’s an ass who has no respect for me. I should be glad to have him gone for as long as possible.

  Chapter Six

  Jape’s outward calm stayed in place long enough for the enforcement dome’s door to shut behind him. Once outside, anger returned to the fore. He stormed over the well-trodden path through the tall grasses to his dartwing. He snarled at his helmet, which he’d let the Earthling wear in deference to her more vulnerable anatomy, and shoved it over his own head so the clear visor would shield his eyes from anything flying in the wind.

  He crammed his bulk into the snug cockpit of the dartwing. As he settled in, he remembered how it had felt to have Velia close, her body warm against his.

  Missing that now made him angrier as he lifted the dartwing into the air. Damn it, why did she have to be so—so—

  “Nice.”

  But she’s not. She feels nice. She acts nice. But she’s with the Earthling military. Why am I the only person who seems to get that?

  Jape had lost the three members of his senior enforcement staff in the multiple fights to take and keep the hive and its portal. Only orange-skinned Insaf remained of the most experienced officers, and he neared retirement age. He’d not wanted the position of Jape’s deceased second, Lan. None of the surviving junior officers were ready for those responsibilities.

  After Lan’s death, Jape had reached out to neighboring Hahz Village’s head enforcer, Kren Zvanhahz, for help for a number of reasons. First, their hive had been cleaned out of the Monsuda and the portal within it was destroyed. Any immediate threat from the Risnarish’s foe was negligible.

  Second, Hahz had familiarity in dealing with Earthlings. A female named Jeannie lived in the village, apparently in a bonded relationship with Kren himself. Jape admitted a few Earthlings had proven themselves capable of principle. Since he believed Kren to be a reliable enforcer, Jape had to assume Jeannie was such a member of her species.

  Arga Enrihahz Bolep had been Kren’s second. The man had been eager to make a difference in the fight against the Monsuda. His childhood guardian had been abducted and experimented on by the enemy, and Arga owed them for the injustices suffered. With Kren’s highest recommendation, Jape had been glad to accept Arga as his temporary second until a junior officer had been trained in full for the rank.

  I should have known with Arga being friendly to the Earthling Jeannie that he would be sympathetic to Velia, Jape reasoned as he zoomed through the blue night. Yet the skilled second should have recognized that her presence in a military facility with a Monsudan portal access pinpointed her as an enemy. She might only be an engineer as she claimed, but she was actively siding with the Risnarish’s foe. She asserted loyalty to people who worked against their own survival.

  Jape swooped to the temple complex, a circle of domes all attached to the largest. He rounded the installation to the medium-size structure on the far side. There, Head Elder Ehar and the rest of the council awaited him, and they would want answers. Answers he did not have.

  The dartwing landed silently in the sweet-smelling, high grass. Jape sat in the craft’s confines, trying to steady his thoughts and emotions.

  Ehar and half of the remaining council had their own agenda when it came to Earthlings and Monsuda. Jape didn’t entirely agree with their apparent fear of Earthlings and the chaos the aliens tended to bring to the peaceful Risnarish. However, Ehar’s desire to cut Cas off from the Earthling military site coincided with his. He was willing to overlook the differences of opinion.

  It was too bad their first shared objective hadn’t been accomplished. Jape would have to answer for his failed attempt to destroy the Earth portal access. And for bringing Velia back to Risnar.

  I should have brought along her new best buddy, Arga. Let him explain how wonderful her kind is to Ehar. Ha! One conversation with the head elder would chill his attitude.

  Jape remained in the dartwing for a few moments, drawing the fragrant air deep into his lungs. Steady. Calm. Stop thinking ill of Arga. He’s not to blame for our troubles. He’s been a great help to Cas as we’ve recovered from our losses.

  Arga had not seen firsthand the damage Earthling collusion with the Monsuda could do. Jape couldn’t in good conscience fault the man for making excuses for Velia, not when Arga’s involvement with Earthlings had been positive.

  “He doesn’t recognize their treachery, not like I do,” Jape murmured to himself.

  As for Velia and her ilk, everything would be remedied in the end. It had to be, because Jape needed to atone for his mistakes. He had to redeem himself for those he’d lost. The warriors he’d led, the men who’d died.

  “I’ll make it right. My friends, my brothers in All-Spirit, I swear this to you.”

  Jape didn’t care what sacrifice it would take. Whatever absolution demanded, he would give.

  He stepped into the dome where Cas’s Elders Council gathered to determine the direction of the village. At the late hour, the corridor outside the inner chambers was deserted. The only illumination spilled from a nearby doorway. Jape headed toward it.

  He went inside, expecting to find the four members of the seven-person council who’d protested any Earthling inclusion in Risnar’s issues. The three women and a male member had recently been censured by the Assembly, Risnar’s highest authority.

  No one sat upon the plush lounges where the council often reclined as they discussed Cas’s needs. Instead, the four elders stood together as Jape entered. They stared at him.

  Head Elder Ehar stepped forward. Her smoky skin was dual-striped with black and white, and the thick circlet of gold on her brow denoted her office. She was tall and slender as most Risnarish women, and her age was almost impossible to determine on appearance alone. Jape’s best hint of her years was in knowing that only those in their last third of life were eligible to
serve on the council.

  Ehar placed a hand on her flat chest. Unlike female Earthlings, Risnarish women possessed breasts solely during the time they nursed their young. The lack reminded Jape of Velia’s entrancing curves.

  Ehar’s soft voice held a musical quality, though the lilt sounded strident now that he compared it to Velia’s husky tones. “From our spirits to yours, Jape Bolep. Salno discovered your mission.”

  “Unfortunately. I wasn’t able to destroy the Earthling portal access as we’d hoped.”

  “You also brought one of them back with you. A female.” He thought he saw the slightest of tightening of skin around Ehar’s eyes.

  Jape stopped himself from reacting to the accusation. “I was left with no choice. Had I not taken her hostage, I would have been killed or captured.”

  “Those creatures have caused far too many problems. With only two of them on Risnar, our way of life has been endangered. They threaten the very fabric of our existence. I cannot have their kind in Cas, disrupting us once more.”

  She didn’t comment on the peril he’d faced. Had Ehar and her supporters determined that Earthlings on Risnar were such a menace that Jape’s death was an acceptable loss?

  You know the answer to that. Ehar has made it clear that the aliens are to be kept out of the village at all costs. She’d have preferred the death of Cas’s head enforcer over having an Earthling here. But what does it matter? I have no one left whom I’m close to.

  Jape wondered if Velia shared an intense connection with someone on Earth. For the first time, it occurred to him that maybe a man awaited her on her planet. A man who worried and wondered if he’d ever see her alive again.

  Guilt stabbed him with unexpected barbs and Jape found himself defending her people. “The Monsuda endanger our two planets, Head Elder. The Earthlings are merely foolish pawns in the equation. Victims, if the Monsuda go through with their plan to colonize that world.”

  Ehar shrugged delicate shoulders. “Perhaps the All-Spirit sees fit to punish the Earthlings for their collusion.”

  “Punish?” Jape frowned. The teachings he’d received had never described the All-Spirit as punitive. It couldn’t be. It was the source of creation and love.

  “I meant only in the sense of balancing the scales of life, of course. At any rate, what the All-Spirit wills is not for us to say.”

  Green-and-orange Sker, the sole male elder present, agreed with passion in his tone. “Let the Earthlings reap the benefits of their foolishness. We have been under the threat of the Monsuda for millennia. I should be glad for them to go elsewhere.”

  “Focus on what is important.” Ehar gazed levelly at Jape. “You failed to destroy the Earthlings’ portal access. Then you did the last thing we needed. You returned with a female.”

  “Temporarily. I have every intention of sending her home and destroying that access point as we agreed I would.”

  “When?”

  Jape bristled at the perceived impatience. “I need long enough for the Earthlings’ military to grow complacent again. Perhaps I can remedy the matter in a week.”

  “The female will be here that long?” Ehar’s cool demeanor turned frigid.

  He shrugged. “She might have useful information since I took her from that portal chamber. I’d like a few days to question her.”

  “Why would it require a few days?”

  She’s afraid I’ve got other motives. Though he hated being interrogated, as if he didn’t know what he was doing, he wasn’t surprised at her dogged questioning. Two women had come from Earth. Both had snared Risnarish men in love relationships. While the situations were strange, Kren and Nex had earned the envy of other men, men who wished to have lovers in their daily lives. They could not have that with the women of their own planet.

  Despite finding Velia intriguing and physically appealing, Jape had no intention of becoming emotionally entangled. Nor would anyone else, not on his watch. All he wanted from her were answers about the Earthlings’ alliance with the Monsuda.

  He asked, “Do you remember how stubborn Anneliese was when she stayed here?”

  Ehar’s eyes narrowed. “Is this new woman another fighter?”

  “Velia is no Anneliese. Not even a hint of that type of strength, which is why I believe it will take two days to get the answers I wish from her. Maybe three. Surely no more.”

  He was confident about that. Velia had stated her loyalty to her treacherous military. Not being a warrior herself, she would be eager to return to them, to hide as the Risnarish women hid behind their warriors.

  Ehar said, “Keep her away from the scientists and any of our technology the Monsuda are not aware of. She must not be allowed to report anything to her kind.”

  “Of course. I will personally ensure that.”

  “I insist that you do, or there will be a new head enforcer to replace you.”

  With that, Ehar glided past him, the other three elders drifting in her wake. They left Jape without the customary salute of hand to chest, of wishing him well in his endeavors. They left him with Ehar’s unbelievable words ringing in his ears.

  Ehar had threatened his place in life. The reason Spirit had created him, to protect and fight for his people. She’d done so in her melodic but unfeeling voice, as if robbing him of his two hearts’ reason to beat was no great matter.

  Jape stood stunned for several minutes, unable to move, barely able to breathe.

  Chapter Seven

  “Jape’s not a bad person at all,” Arga insisted to Velia. “He loves our world. He loves our people.”

  “But he hates Earthlings.” Velia leaned on a computer podium, tired in her heart and soul after talking with her hosts about Jape. How could the other men, Risnar’s version of police officers, be so assured that the brute who’d snatched her from Earth was a hero? All she’d seen from Jape was an insistence that she carry all the alleged ills of her species on her shoulders.

  But that glimpse of agony before he walked out...

  An older fellow, the tiger-colored Insaf, had known her kidnapper the longest. “Jape liked the Earthling who stayed with us for several days. He respected Anneliese.”

  “Why did she get a pass?”

  Selduk, as youthful as his spring-green base color suggested, spoke up. “She was a warrior. She was more like a man than a woman.” He said it as if it were a compliment.

  “And he appreciated that?”

  Insaf chuckled. “Once we got past the strangeness of a forceful spirit residing within a woman, we all liked her. Risnarish and Earthling women are different from each other.”

  Velia thought about the female she’d met, the restrained Salno. “How are we different?”

  “Our females tend to be extremely spiritual. It can make them seem remote, even unemotional to those unfamiliar with them. We can find them hard to connect with, especially those of us who don’t interact with them day to day.”

  “I only speak to women when we have sex,” Selduk confirmed. “Until Anneliese showed up, I had no other reason to talk to a female.”

  Was it that way for most of the men of Risnar? To be separate from women, except when it came to intimacies? Was that part of Jape’s issues with her?

  So what do I do to get on his good side? Offer him a roll in the hay?

  Velia’s mind skittered nervously from the image of a lustful Jape. She made a concerted effort to not check the men’s groins, absent of baby-making bits. The naughty portion of her mind urged her to ask if they formed sexual parts as they did fingers and tails.

  Hell, no. That subject is not on the menu for a single second, not with these lovelorn creatures.

  She cleared her throat. “What’s the big deal with me? Why have I landed on Jape’s list of evil Earthlings? Other than the fact that I’m not a soldier. I’m not aloof either. I enjoy people. I love a part
y, when I’m invited to one.”

  The enforcers grinned. Selduk’s enthusiasm rang loud as he said, “You’ll have to come to our erawots. Those are fun.”

  “The bonfires and sharing time,” Arga explained.

  “I noticed a fire nearby, with Risnarish standing around it. I wanted to check it out, but Mr. Grumpy Stripes forced me to come in here instead.”

  Selduk snickered at her nickname for Jape. Arga permitted himself a broader smile before answering.

  “Jape is hurting. Cas’s encounters with the Monsuda and their drones ended with men captured and killed. The captured were recovered, but only after they’d endured some horrific experimentation by the Monsuda.”

  Insaf nodded in agreement. “You can’t bring back the dead. All those we lost were good friends. Men who were brothers to us. Jape has turned hardcore where the Monsuda and Earthling connection is concerned.”

  Velia rubbed her temples. “I saw the portal access for the first time a week ago. I understand there are aliens the military high command is working with, but I haven’t met them myself.” Defensively, she added, “I haven’t seen anything that suggests my leaders are in the wrong. They take their service to our country seriously.”

  “The Monsuda are not their friends, Velia.” Arga’s tone was too gentle to cause offense. “They victimize your race and mine. You could talk to my guardian if you prefer a firsthand account of what it means to lie on a Monsudan lab table.”

  She stared at him. “I’m no judge of Risnarish maturity, but aren’t you a little old to require a guardian?”

  He chuckled. “Retav raised me to manhood. He will always be my guardian in spirit, though it’s now my turn to care for him.”

  “Is he in bad shape?”

  “What the Monsuda did to him caused much damage, but Retav is recovering. It’s only through the grace of Spirit that he wasn’t dead when we found him.” Sadness tinged Arga’s anger.

  Insaf stroked his chin. “The Monsuda must have offered your people something of great importance. Obviously portal use would qualify, but what would Earthlings ask of Risnar?”